Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, episode 127: Bubble Watch 2012

Next week will be crazy for the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast due to the broadcast network upfronts, so we tried to prepare both ourselves and our listeners this week with 40+ minutes of speculation on which bubble shows will survive and which are doomed. Also, we found a bit of time to review USA's "Common Law," look back on the unlikely success of "Desperate Housewives," and, as usual, chat about last night's "Mad Men."

The line-up:

Here's today's breakdown:

"Common Law" (00:01:00 - 00:11:10)

"Desperate Housewives" reflections (00:11:10 - 00:18:20)

Upfronts Preview (00:18:20 - 01:01:50)

"Mad Men" (01:02:00 - 01:26:20)

As we discuss towards the end of the show, we will likely have two podcasts next week, but also probably not on Monday. It will be catch as catch can. Follow our blogs, iTunes, the RSS feed, Twitter, etc., to have some sense of when a new podcast has been published.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Parks and recreation is owned by NBC I think or even if it is not it is at 66 episodes. Syndication is a perfect 88 episodes which means NBC or the studio who own it will most likely do anything to get Pars at least a 22 episode season to get that perfect 88. so I think parks will be ok for a full season I think. Plus there ratings are second to the office on Thursday and I think they might be in the top 5 scripted NBC shows. Community has or will have 71 episodes and so they need at least 17 and I think they might also get 22 to finish off the season and series and graduate Jeff and co which would be kind of mission accomplished. So we shall see but really the studios should be doing what the WB did with Chuck and do anything to get the show passed 88 episodes, so I have faith.

BTW Chuck season 5 is out today and I have watched the extras and gotba little misty eyed! Please buy them and hopefully we can get a chuck movie! I hope Alan does a review of the series again just because we all love it so much and love you Alan!

As far as USA shows go, I've kinda given up on Burn Notice, but I do enjoy White Collar. It has gotten better as time goes on. The one I'm truly going to miss is In Plain Sight. Very sad to see it end this past week.

I'm not really sure why you're bothering to waste time discussing the fact that there were actors you'd seen before appearing in Mad Men. Every single actor ever appearing in anything has a cadre of people (even if only family and friends) that is distracted by that person in that role for some reason. Should you also squander time each episode talking about which actual '60s events weren't referenced?

No offense, but I've never seen the Gilmore Girls actor or the other one ever before, so your discussion seemed pointless and inane.

I think their point was that it is easy to get distracted by actors that are well known for playing one specific character, like Mr. Belding and Rory Gilmore. Personally when Alexis Bledel first appeared all I could think was 'oh my god its Rory!!'. It's not distracting for the whole episode, just initially.

I understand. I guess to me it just seems that spending more than 20% of the segment talking about these two minor actors (who, imo, were both fine) seems excessive (especially to people who either don't know the actors - like me - or don't care that they've seen them before) when the Weiner-scripted episode was rich with other more interesting details and nuances that they didn't touch upon.

Don was humming 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' on the drive back from Tomorrowland in Oct. 1965 - nearly 2 years after the song was released in Nov. 1963. The Beatles were way beyond that song then - and Don was already way behind the times.

Also, IMO, if you're going to have an actual death on the show, you don't foreshadow it by talking about and referencing death directly - that would be silly - and I don't remember Weiner & Co. doing that with the previous 5 deaths that have ocurred during the show (aside fom realistic things - such as Don hearing that Anna is sick - or Gene trying to talk about his will). You might foreshadow it with symbols that imply finality and other aspects of death.

It seems more logical - and in keeping with the level of Mad Men writing - that direct references to physical death and suicide are foreshadowing some other kind of death. Perhaps the ego 'death' referenced in 'Tomorrow Never Knows', perhaps career 'suicide', etc, but whatever it is, I'll drop dead myself if a character on the show actually dies.